Mountaineering legend wants to know Reinhold Messner draws a line at the age of 80 - and starts all over again

Sven Ziegler

6.6.2025

Reinhold Messner is starting all over again.
Reinhold Messner is starting all over again.
Instagram

After almost four decades at Juval Castle, Reinhold Messner is retiring from his long-time domicile. Together with his wife Diane, the mountaineering legend is starting a new chapter in Sesto - and planning a project for the future.

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  • Reinhold Messner is moving out of Juval Castle after almost 40 years.
  • His new place of residence will be Sesto in Val Pusteria.
  • The museum in Juval remains, Messner relinquishes responsibility.

Reinhold Messner starts all over again at the age of 80. As the South Tyrolean mountaineer announced on Instagram, he and his wife Diane are moving from the historic Juval Castle to a new home in Sesto in Val Pusteria. This marks the end of a formative chapter in the life of the extreme mountaineering icon - and the beginning of a new one.

"New chapter!", Messner writes in a picture of his previous residence, which for decades not only served him as a place of retreat, but also as a place of encounter with the myth of the mountain. Messner had lived at Juval Castle since 1983, when he bought and lovingly renovated it.

He founded one of his six "Messner Mountain Museums" there, which focuses on the spiritual significance of alpinism. The museum will remain - but Messner is now handing over responsibility: "I've had it long enough," he says.

Messner wants to start a new project

Messner, who has also experienced family turbulence in recent years due to an inheritance dispute, wants to devote more time to the future in his new home. A new project is to be created in Sesto, his new base: the "Reinhold Messner House". He writes on Instagram: "It should look to the future and not the past."

Originally, another Messner museum called "Roca" was planned in Sesto - dedicated to the art of rock climbing. However, this did not materialize. Now everything indicates that Messner is planning an alternative with the "Reinhold Messner House", the orientation of which is still open.

Messner has been married to Diane since 2021. "I would be lonely without her," he once confessed. Now the two are saying goodbye to the old family home together - and looking for a new start in the Dolomites.